My current sock-in-progress is my kick-off project for the Summer of Socks ’08. I decided to start with some sportweight socks to give myself a little “atta-girl” — sportweight socks knit up really fast. 🙂 How fast? I finished the first sock last night.

The yarn (Yarntini sportweight) is wonderful to knit — very soft and yummy. And the skein is a generous 260 yards, which makes a very decent-sized pair of socks.

The pattern is my own — I doodled it up on graph paper last month and stuck it in my “pending” folder for future reference. It is currently called “May12a.”

Anyone have any ideas for a prettier name? Remember, I don’t give my patterns color-specific names (or at least I try not to).

So . . . Summer of Socks. Will I knit only socks this summer? Right now I’m not sure. I might feel the urge to make something lacy or to knit a cotton sweater. So I make no promises!

I do have a lot of cotton in my stash and I’m thinking that as much as I really don’t enjoy knitting with cotton, I’d quite like to have another cotton sweater, seeing as how I’m always too warm to wear wool. So you just never know . . .

Meanwhile, Lucy waits patiently for me to get off the computer and come play with her.

I try from time to time to like stripes, but I just can’t. I just can’t. I feel like a clown on the rare occasions I wear stripes (and my feelings about clowns are well-known amongst my friends).

I did used to knit with self-striping sock yarn when it was first introduced a few years back. But none of those socks were ever seen on my feet.

This is a round-about way of saying that no, I will not be knitting striped socks using the pink and green yarns pictured in last Thursday’s post. Even contrasting heels are borderline for me. 😉

While I like the idea of fair isle socks, I wouldn’t use sportweight yarns for such a design — that would make a very thick sock!

So, I picked the pink. Even though green is my favorite color. No worries, I’ll get to the green eventually.

Last Friday I had lunch with a blog-buddy (betcha didn’t even know she was down here, huh?). She brought me a lovely little box of chocolates from her sister’s company:

Yum!

Believe it or not, there are still 2 left. But not for long . . .

Public Service Announcement

Susan of The Rainey Sisters recently blogged about the Wrapped in Care program. The purpose of the program is to provide hand-knit shawls to women who have experienced the death of a newborn at United or Childrens Hospital – St. Paul.

I’m getting there, but finishing this sock will be spilling over into the start of the Summer of Socks. Ah well, it can’t be helped!

I’ve decided for my first Summer of Socks project to do a sportweight sock — nothing like some immediate gratification to boost your spirits. Well, knitting socks in sportweight yarn is not exactly immediate, but it goes faster than fingering weight. Duh.

I’ve written up a pattern and now I just have to choose a yarn.

Fortunately I just got a package from The Loopy Ewe. Conveniently, I purchased two skeins of sportweight sock yarn, both from Yarntini.

Now I just have to decide which one to use first. Which one would you pick?

Speaking of the Summer of Socks

Are you looking for a fun sock pattern for the Summer of Socks? Check out Kristi’s new design “Guided By Love” available here. Read about it from the link — all profits are being donated to charity and the pattern is adorable. I’ve got my copy!

Meanwhile Back at the Ranch

Lucy is checking my sock in progress. Sometimes I think I work her too hard.

I have made a start on the second one, but will wait until tomorrow to show a progress photo.

I originally had a little fantasy that I would finish this pair moments before the stroke of midnight Friday night, thus enabling me to start a new sock project at the beginning of the Summer of Socks. Yes, well, that’s not going to happen, unless I call in “busy with sock knitting” to work, which I am not planning on doing.

Not that it matters . . . I’ve set no goals for myself nor entered any contests for the Summer of Socks, so it’ll be just freestyle knitting for me!

In other news, boy oh boy, are you gonna be jealous when you see my new Ravelry shot glasses:

We all know what that means: Summer of Socks. And I haven’t even thought abut what I’ll start with to kick off the Summer of Socks!

I ought to be finishing up my Nanner socks right around the start of SOS. I have the first one almost done:

(It would be completely done if I didn’t spend so much time goofing off over the past few days.)

So I checked my “pending” folder on my ‘puter for sock designs I’m working up and note that I have 76 files in there. I guess I ought to pick one out, polish it up, and designate it the kick-off sock for the Summer of Socks.

A while back someone asked me if I ever knit any other people’s sock designs. The answer is: not any more. In early 2007 I did knit 2 or 3 of the patterns that came with sock club offerings, but since the start of summer last year I’ve been doing my own thing.

Someone else asked me if I ever knit my own designs twice. And the answer to that is pretty much no. I’ve got 76 pending sock designs so I’d better get to knitting those.

Note that I don’t expect all 76 of them to evolve into socks. But more than half of them probably will.

Golden Boy

Thank you to all of you who left such thoughtful and caring comments on the impending demise of Golden Boy. Many of you offered to send me prospective Golden Boy replacements and I took a couple of you up on this offer. I thank all of you who offered.

Many of you shared your row counting techniques. In true Wendy fashion, I have found something wrong with each and every one of them.

While the paper and pen method works well for many of you, it does not work for me while commuting, nor at home, as I have a pen-stealing kitty.

The katcha-katcha on a cord around the neck works well for many of you, but does not work for me on my commute, as I already have a frigging badge around my neck and do not wish to wear any more non-jewelry related stuff.

The mini katcha-katcha pinned to the knitting works well for many of you, but I have tried it on a sock-in-progress and it’s a bit too heavy for comfort.

I am clearly difficult.

On reader recommendation, I purchased a Clover row counter.

It’s not bad . . . it’s not bad at all. Not quite as good as Golden Boy in his prime, but definitely usable.

By the way, I do not need a row counter for my Nanner socks — the pattern repeat is only 12 rows. I only use Golden Boy on very long pattern repeats. By counting rows, I can keep better track of the pattern and therefore memorize it more easily. This means I don’t need the chart, so I knit faster. It’s all a chain reaction.

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